To End a Life
by Cliste the Bartender
Summary: The first time he killed.


**Disclaimer & Warnings:** I don't own TMNT... probably for the better of mankind. Rated T for violence and traumatizing experiences.

This story's pretty angsty, so prepare yourself...

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><p><em>What have you done?<em>

The only thing Leonardo's mind would process was the blood. The rivulets riding along a shining blade, tainting pale hands; the iron smell met his senses with a burning at his throat. His vision dyed red, warmth splattered on his abdomen as he twisted his sword. It met with a tinge of resistance – a rib – before slicing through the flesh like butter.

The body fell to the ground with a thud and a cloud of dust, heavy clothing clinging to skin in a wet puddle.

_It was your choice. _A voice spoke in the back of his mind. It was a demon, whispering falsehoods by his ears. It was the Devil, a snake that found its way through a crack and into his spirit. It sounded so much like Leonardo, but it wasn't. It couldn't be.

He wasn't a murderer.

Numbness ran through his limbs like a drug, teasing his palm to relax. A far off ring – a waking bell – brought Leo's eyes to the ground. He'd dropped his katana. It lay on the dirt beside the man, telling a horrid story.

_The dead don't look like they're sleeping_. Whoever had compared death to sleep had never seen a candid body, splayed on the ground the way it had been when the breath escaped him. The only corpses that looked peaceful were dressed up and sleeping in coffins, propped like a doll to look as human as possible.

No, this dead man's eyes were wide and open. Dull and lifeless yet filled with every thought and emotion that had run through his head in the last seconds of his life. They were a dark brown, like his hair. It was a beautiful color, like chestnut wood.

Leo tried to kneel with grace, keeping the last of his composure as a silk shield from the creeping thunder of emotions that closed in on him; but he fell onto his knees, unable to use any of his muscles correctly.

He reached a shaking green hand out, terrified of the corpse. He only touched the thing enough to close the wild eyes, hoping that then, the dead man might sleep.

_I'm not to blame,_ the small voice whispered

The man had attacked first. He'd left the half beaten girl to look for what had made the noise: A rustle in the leaves. Leo had lost focus. The anger that had welled inside and his stomach churned; the terrapin lost balance for a split second and the branch he'd been crouching on shook.

When the man saw Leo, he attacked. The man had thrown the first punch. Leo had acted out of self defense. No, he'd acted out in defense for the girl; half dead from the beating that man had given her. It was the man that drove Leo to draw blood.

He wasn't a murderer. That man had deserved death, had he not? If it was rightful justice, it wasn't murder.

Leo brought himself to his feet, not minding to pick up his katana. His hands dripped with foreign blood.

The air was warm with life, filled with small breezes and the scent of greenery. The sky was clear and the clouds had long since dissipated. The scene ran ice through Leo's veins. The cold, dead silence shamed him and the beautiful day mocked him. _What have you become? _It said, _you were the sky and the wind, and now you stand cast from heaven._

The man had deserved to die! He deserved to die. Leo had done the world a small favor, ramming his blade through human flesh. The thoughts were like delicate poison, and Leo found himself gasping for breath before he realized he was in panic.

Those words were sick, Leonardo knew, horrible, horrible self justifications. A silk shield to protect against a storm of raw emotion, it didn't stand a chance. He wanted to run, he wanted to leave, he ached to sprint away, but his legs would carry him nowhere.

And so he stood, looming over the corpse and staring into tainted hands that would never be clean again.

...The girl.

The girl. The girl needed help.

Memories ran vivid, flashes of desperation and the green of life streaked in the air. Maybe still in a panic, or maybe still in a trance, Leo's feet found themselves and carried him to stand over a bloody girl.

Swelling and discoloration ran rampant across her body. Her hair splayed in tangles along the concrete road, wet and shining with velvety red liquid. It sent a churning through Leo's stomach, and he gagged at the sight and the smell.

With numbness in his arms and a sickening pit in his abdomen, the terrapin scooped up the girl. There was a hospital nearby. And he prayed to whatever Gods gazed upon him now that the limp body in his arms would live.

His legs carried them to the hospital. It could have been hours that he ran or it could have been seconds, he didn't know. Time was erratic in a blur of movement and euphoric numbness. He couldn't think, his mind drawn blank; he couldn't feel the subtle warmth in his arms or the disfigured face pressed against his plastron.

_What have you become?_

All he knew was that he couldn't let another life stain his hands.

Tepid memory finally came to reality when the girl was taken inside the hospital. Leo watched from the shadows as white stricken nurses called for help and tended to the girl.

The sun beat past him in a beautiful light, catching his eye in a window he stood next to. It sketched out his reflection, and Leo finally saw himself for what he was.

There was so much red - so much blood that dressed his body, so much blood that wasn't his. It caked him in a demonic appearance wrought and strung up with withered cedar eyes. This wasn't him. This wasn't Leonardo.

The eyes etched into the glass that stared into his… those couldn't be his eyes. They were dark, wild and devilish, and burning his sin into his soul with a foul pain. They sent shivers down his arms and pulled the air from his lungs in rapid breathing. It toppled his vision into dizziness and panic into his bones.

And only one thing was clear.

He tore his eyes from the reflection. Something screamed at him, bellowing, pleading, to somehow set things right. It carried his feet across land and back to the forest. Somewhere, that something told him that he had to get back to the man, the person, the human he'd killed. He had to do something to save his soul.

Yet slowly, creeping with a beautiful numbness, darkness began to suffocate his vision into thread of sleep, even as he continued to run.

The voice in the back of his mind whispered again, loud in the promising numb._ You don't belong here,_ it said, _you cannot rest here. Hell has no place for you..._

OoOo-Ermahgerd it's a line break-oOoO

Ember eyes snapped open, suddenly hyperaware of their surroundings. Leo propped himself up and looked about the night sky. A breath of relief escaped him – it had been a dream.

It had only been a horrifying and vivid dream.

He looked about himself for his katana. The ground was near black, shaded by towering trees. He felt along the ground, the wet dirt riding between his fingers as they cascaded over roots and greenery, only to stop at the feel of wet clothes.

When he leaned closer, rancid smells ran through him, but Leo was too numb to gag. Horrible realization wound through him.

He'd passed out. He'd passed out right next to the corpse of a man he killed.

His first kill.

He'd committed murder. And then his mind had played tricks on him.

Leo would never be able to wash himself of this sin, he knew. From now on, the best he could hope for after death was to awaken on the righteous side of hell.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> My first story on this account! Confetti!

Anyways, this' a song fic, based off of "Wrong Side of Heaven" by Five Finger Death Punch. I thought the song fit Leo so much (does it really?), I couldn't help but write this.

Thanks for reading :) Please Please review, any feedback would be great


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